20. The Embodiment of Love

Lord Jesus, give me the words to convey this most Holy Thing You are showing me. Look again at the tree of life. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.

 

I want to give another picture. Many Christians may scream, “Blasphemy,” when they read it.

Here is the incredible secret of the power of God. God always wins. All things come out from God. All things exist in God and are sustained by Him. And all things return back to Him.

God always wins. And He always wins by Love.

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:10-11

Let me give here two versions of the final act of creation. First the version which almost all Christians fervently believe.

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Satan stands alone. Everything else, every other created being has bowed its neck. Satan alone stands defiant, proud and unbowed, spitting fury and hatred against his Creator. Chains are thrown around him, mighty angels heave and pull.

He staggers forward and stumbles, pulled down upon his knees before Jesus. He spits and screams. Michael, the archangel, reaches out and grabs Satan’s mouth. He squeezes hard and twists, wrenching Satan’s head sideways. Jesus stands and waits, grim determination on His face.

“Speak the words, jerk,” hisses Michael as he presses even harder.

Through his wailing bitterness, in spite of the blackness and rebellion of his heart, Satan breaks. He cannot resist the force and manipulation of God.

 “Jesus, You are Lord,” the words squeeze out of Satan’s mouth.

“Ha, You won, Jesus,” shouts God. “Throw him back into the fire.”

Out of the wailing, falling cry comes these words, “You raped me, God. I did it because You forced me to, but NEVER NEVER in my heart.”

“Oh well,” says God. “It was a lie, after all. But who cares. You made him do it and that’s all that counts. A lie is good enough for My Son.”

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Yes, I have heard this version preached across the pulpit. It is taught throughout all Christian theology. They’ll do it, even though they surely don’t want to. “God is happy with a lie.” Let me give a slightly different picture.

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Satan stands alone. Everything else, every other created being has yielded its heart to the tender kindness of Jesus. Satan alone stands under all the weight of sin and rebellion. All of its consequences now rest solely upon him. His loneliness overwhelms him. He is afraid. His eyes are opened; he can no longer hide from all the horror of his actions.

A gentle hand touches his brow. He looks up into the most amazing eyes in all the universe. They are tender and kind. Tears run down the cheeks of the Man before whom he kneels. Satan’s heart breaks. “I did not know. I did not know. Forgive me; please forgive me. Jesus, my Lord and my God.”

God turns to all creation, tears pouring down His face. “This day,” He says through His sobs, “This day, Love has won. This is My Beloved Son.”

And all creation, rank upon rank, billions upon billions, cast themselves upon their faces in awe crying, “Holy, Holy.”

“There is no more lie,” says the Father.

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Now tell me. Which of these two scenarios does Satan, right now, want people to believe? And which one is true to the heart of the Father we know?

To be like Jesus; to be like Jesus. We are just like Him for we see Him as He is. He reveals Himself through us.

Let’s see if we can reduce this truth down to a few words.

God wants to reveal Himself to creation. He wants to be seen and touched and handled. But God is invisible. No created being can see or know Him. So God creates man out of both heaven and earth. God sees the final picture of what Man is through whom He can reveal Himself. God sees Jesus; and He sees you and me through Him.

Yet God does not force and He cannot lie. In creating man, God knows that sin must be. God does not create sin; He creates man and sets him free, bearing already in Himself all the consequences of man’s freedom.

But God also knows that Love will win. “Lord Jesus, give me the words to convey this most Holy Thing You are showing me.” Look again at the tree of life.

He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.

I helped kill a large ram once, to butcher for meat. He was well able to defend himself. Yet the moment we laid our hands upon him, all struggle instantly ceased. He did not resist us.

This is the true nature of God revealed in Jesus. Yet “He opened not His mouth” are terrible words. God is usually talking, a still small voice always speaking. But here He is silent. Creation can do whatever it wants to its Creator; God will never defend Himself. God is meek and lowly of heart. You are free to kill God, if you wish; He will not resist you. You are also perfectly free to ignore anything He says.

Yet God wins. In the end, He wins the love of every individual created being. And this is the most important revelation of Christ we set our expectation and the boldness of our faith upon. This reality is fulfilled a second time through us.

And if anyone wants to harm them, fire proceeds from their mouth and devours their enemies. Revelation 11:5 

If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head. Romans 12

Love is a consuming fire. Giving a cup of cold water to those who hate the truth is a consuming fire.

God, in creating man, saw many things. He saw His own great desire, to be seen and known and touched. He saw sin and evil, darkness and oppression and pain; He knew it all, having already born all of it inside His own heart. He saw Jesus, redeeming all, triumphing over all, winning all. He saw the end of creation, bowing in broken tenderness before Love, swallowed up in that Love.

But God also saw something else. He saw something that staggers our hearts and minds. He saw something we cannot comprehend.

God saw you and me. In seeing you and me, God made the decision to do it; to go ahead with creation in spite of all its costs, in spite of the fall, in spite of the pain. For you see, you and I are the ones whom He chose from before the foundation of the world, to be the revelation of His Son, to be the body through which He shows Himself as He really is, meek and lowly of heart, tender and kind.

God saw you and me, the embodiment of Love.

It is not that, after 6000 years of horror and pain, the WIN begins with us. It is that, after 6000 years of horror and pain, the WIN is revealed, it begins, THROUGH us. You and I are the WIN of God. Through us, the WIN begins. Through us, God WINS it all back. You and I are the whole point of everything.

We are the revelation of Jesus Christ, the pin-point of the very Heart of Almighty God showing itself, now, for the second time, the final proof of all that God is. Can we believe that?

It is the grace of God that allows us to believe what is true.

The words that I share cannot convey the glory that I see. Yet I am just the Daniel that everyone has always known. I know that the Holy Spirit will overshadow you as you read these words and cause you to see precisely what you need right now.

I am a weak and tired man pecking away at his keyboard. I got mad at God this last while, completely frustrated at everything going wrong that can go wrong. I’m so tired of it, tired of believing for His favor and not seeing it. And when I’m frustrated with God, then all I can see is what an idiot I’ve been to write all this stuff and make it public.

The most amazing thing is I no longer define myself by my own human emotions, my own ups and downs, my own ins and outs. Jesus is my Savior; He carries me. Even in all my human weakness, I never leave the light. I tire quickly of imagining I am separate from Him. Jesus is the only One I know or want to know.

I am the embodiment of Love.

Jesus reveals Himself through me. I believe in Jesus.

Human government is Force. It is part of the curse, the consequence of sin. Human government is the opposite of the Lord Jesus Christ. Binding men with chains, throwing them in prison, gunning them down in the street. Passing laws. There is no difference between rape and passing a law. Human laws create corruption and lawlessness. By every law passed, people’s lives are violated, their bodies thrown into prison, their labor taken from them by force. A politician and a rapist are the same (unless the politician always votes, “No.”) Those Christians who “pray” for the troops murder when the troops kill and rape when the troops rape. All of it is of the evil one.

More and more we are watching human authority take on the persona and the ways of Satan, the nature of the dragon. That’s why God calls all human government “the Beast.”

The final showdown upon this earth is the final conflict between the Lamb and the Beast. The Beast takes life to force men to its will. The Lamb lays down His life to win men by His love. God is the One who has carefully crafted this showdown as we see it taking form upon the earth. People object to understanding the world as it is; they prefer to call evil “good.” Yet the world as it IS bends to God’s intention. God lays down His life for His enemies; and in so doing, He breaks their chains. God casts off the lies, no matter how painful that experience is to those who love their lies.

You and I are that Love layed down at this end of the age of human folly. Through us Love triumphs over hate, Kindness swallows up cruelty, Light banishes darkness.

The Power of Almighty God is that incredible and overwhelming power found in the kindness of a touch, in the giving of a cup of cold water to one who is thirsty. God is found in the one who lays down his life for his enemies; Satan is found in the one who fights back, the one who murders his neighbor “for freedom.” All murder is “for freedom.” All who kill for whatever reason want to rid themselves of the obligation of their brother, of the nature of God to highly regard one created in His image.

This was always the purpose and intention of God, to reveal this extraordinary contrast through vessels of weakness. If there is no conflict, then there is no purpose, nor any story at all.

You and I right now are what creation is all about. We are the embodiment of Love, the containers of the consuming Fire.